Researchers reviewed 2,075 patients and found 573 patients were obese, with a BMI from 30 to 39.9. Of the obese patients, only 109 received the correct code, which gave the ICD-9 code a 0.19 sensitivity. Among the 174 morbidly obese patients, who had a BMI more than 40, only 84 percent received the correct code.
“Using obesity as an example, this study highlights the potential errors inherent to using ICD-9-coded databases for spine surgery research. Should a study based on such data use ‘obesity’ as a variable in any analysis, the reader should interpret these results with caution,” the study authors concluded.
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